revealed, the project leader must address the next two
issues: how to prevent momentum stall, and how to reverse any downward spiral caused by the cycle of
doubt. Our practice-based investigation has uncovered eight action steps project leaders may consider to
stabilize or recover a project’s momentum. We also
offer a ninth recommendation for times when a project’s reputation and performance simply cannot be
salvaged. While this list of remedial actions offers a
range of useful options, savvy project leaders will use
their experience and nuanced understanding of their
project’s context (such as the organization’s politics,
processes, and practicalities) to implement the specific
action step or combination of action steps most effective for addressing their particular project challenge.

1. Prove the concept. When the stakes are high,
viability is uncertain, and strong resistance or apathy
are possibilities, project leaders can generate enthusiasm and pave the way for a successful large-scale
effort by proving value in limited and successive
stages. Of course, the option of a pilot may not be
feasible if a project has a very tight deadline that does
not afford time for experimentation. One executive
at a cybersecurity company who did not face such
constraints expressed the scenario this way: “I
learned early in my career that the big-bang delivery
of large projects simply doesn’t work.” An example
of generating achievement in stages is the approach
taken by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space
Administration’s (NASA) Apollo program, which
began in 1963 and hit its peak with Apollo 11’s moon
landing and safe return to Earth six years later. Each
Apollo mission added incrementally to program
momentum by proving feasibility, and revealing and
resolving “unknown unknowns.” 7

A more recent success story is the U.S. Department of Justice’s Smart Policing Initiative. 8 Select
police departments across the U.S. were chosen to
receive federal funding to implement community
policing and data-driven, strategic problem-solving
and resource allocation. Performance of a pilot
program in a major U.S. city demonstrated significant drops in homicides and other violent crimes. 9
One of our interviewees, a senior leader involved in
the national rollout, observed that positive word of
mouth generated from this single site delivered a
powerful boost in smart-policing participation
rates in police departments across the country.

The FAA’s NextGen project offers an example of
concept proof but also raises caution about the difficulty of breaking a project free from the cycle of doubt
once it has negative momentum. Alaska Air Group
Inc. implemented the FAA tracking technology on its
aircraft ahead of other carriers and has touted the
benefits of the new system. 10 Even with demonstrated
success on a limited scale and strong praise from this
early adopter, other carriers remained skeptical of the
FAA’s ability to roll out the project in its entirety and
hesitant to participate fully in the initiative. 11 The lesson here is that the project leader needs to identify the
right blend of the eight action steps, as one alone may
be insufficient to reverse a steep decline in reputation
and momentum.

An additional consideration about proving the
concept is that the revelation of weak points and
nonstarters in a small-scale effort can save the
project’s leader and contributors from having a
large-scale disaster on their résumés. At worst, the
team will have carried out a limited or “quiet failure,”
one that did not squander major company resources,
expose the organization to long-term or high-profile
risk, or subject the project leader’s personal reputation to a major organization-wide embarrassment.

2. Keep it short or break it up. Shorter projects
are less likely than longer ones to be victims of diverted attention or changing priorities, because
shorter projects hit the finish line before they can be
overshadowed by new initiatives. A senior project

THE DYNAMICS OF THE CYCLE OF DOUBT

Many projects are launched with high praise and promise but lose
traction and momentum during project delivery, once the real work
is underway. This self-perpetuating downward spiral can cause
contributors to distance themselves from an effort that is losing
support, cannot overcome inertia, or worse, is derailed.